Each year, the Bristol Institute for Learning and Teaching (BILT) runs project themes, and one of the key focuses for the 2024/25 academic year is ‘Active and Inclusive Learning’. But behind the title: What is it, and how does it work?
Active and Inclusive Learning can be defined as:
“Active learning engages students in the process of learning through activities and/or discussion in class, as opposed to passively listening to an expert. It emphasises higher-order thinking and often involves group work”
(Freeman et al., 2014).
Breaking down Freeman et al’s definition, Active Learning in my experience at Bristol is heavily focused around group and pair discussion, problem solving and more student interaction than traditional lectures. Moving past two hour sessions of frantic note-taking and slideshow-concentrating sounds positive to most students, however it is crucial to consider all aspects of active learning, and importantly, the instances of student resistance.
Research of active learning, specifically student resistance, highlights important issues that come with rolling out changes to traditional learning.
To begin with, love it or hate it, all lectures at Bristol are recorded and posted on Blackboard, to facilitate learning without geographical or time implications, as well as allowing for consolidation and rewatching. When considering a traditional lecture, this works well, and in my experience, is an almost identical experience. However, with active learning, being in the room becomes paramount. Whilst active learning will involve some traditional lecturing, it is hard to see how the full experience can be replicated in a recording. As students become more and more acclimated to the mindset of ‘I don’t need to go, I’ll just watch the recording’, an increase in active learning could be difficult to implement.
There are also so many other compiling factors that complicate active learning, a huge one being the different factors that can make students uncomfortable in a more interactive environment. Beginning with language difficulties, in the 2022/23 academic year, 20.2% of students at UK universities did not speak English as a first language. Seeing students with a live translator during lectures, whilst is not incredibly common, is far from unheard of. Traditional lecturing here is so much easier for those who wish to translate, or have a slowed down recording at home. Whereas, a group discussion with conflicting accents, volumes and colloquial phrases, risks being harder to navigate.
A final aspect of Active Learning important to how it is experienced by students is the environment in which it occurs. We are slowly seeing classrooms designed for Active Learning being introduced, such as the Ivy Gate building at Bristol. Having classrooms that can accommodate for near 150 students all talking, sharing ideas and moving around the room one minute, and traditional lecturing the next, will quickly become a vital asset as Active Learning is rolled out further. Aside from the physical environment, in class communication and comfortability of students is paramount. Here it is the work of lecturers and academics to create a learning space where open sharing is encouraged, and students are happy to engage. Tharayil et al (2018) explore this, discussing strategies to mitigate student resistance, and the important role of academic leads in this, as they found that successful implications of strategies to reduce resistance aid in Active Learning. At the start of my course, academics facilitated time for icebreakers and group discussion to build networks that were not specifically course relevant. This also included moving people away from tables if they clearly already knew each other, and was a great foundation for facilitating an open environment.
Despite these possibly complicating factors, the empirical research into Active Learning shows advantages to students. Freeman et al (2014) found increases in student performance, and decreases in the likelihood of failing, in STEM subjects incorporating Active Learning. This and other encouraging research suggests that moves towards Active Learning are worth exploring in higher education, and further supports the importance of academics and universities incorporating strategies to mitigate student resistance. This research is also noteworthy, as in my experience, students have questioned how worthwhile Active Learning is. Whilst leaving a three-hour lectorial in the Ivy Gate Building, I was discussing with some classmates when one of them asked ‘What did we actually learn in that?’. She was referring to the lack of concrete note-taking and traditional lecturing. Herein lies an issue: Active Learning can be hard to demonstrate. Leaving a lecture with two pages of notes is a very clear depiction of the fact that you have been taught, however group discussion and problem-solving is not easily displayed. This is relevant to one of Freeman et al’s mitigation strategies, as they recommend explaining Active Learning, its benefits and why it is being used to students. As a student, I do see this as being beneficial to learning and creating an open environment.
There is so much else to explore when considering introduction of and student resistance to Active Learning, however this blog aims to be a start to considering the student experience and student resistance in Active Learning contexts.
References
Freeman, S., Eddy, S. L., McDonough, K. M., Smith, M. K., Okros, N., & Jordt, H. (2014). Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,111(36), 14533-14538
Tharayil, S., Borrego, M., Prince, M. et al. Strategies to mitigate student resistance to active learning. IJ STEM Ed 5, 7 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-018-0102-y
